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Ahead of fall fiscal talks that already have Washington nervous about a government shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is clamping down on Republicans with a firm message to stick with him on spending.

With the nearly unanimous GOP rejection last week of Senate Democrats’ transportation funding bill, McConnell senses an opportunity to dig in on an issue that highlights the most elemental difference between the two parties: the size of government.

The GOP leader sees a winning political message heading into the fall before the 2014 midterms. Showing himself as the leader of a conference bent on spending cuts as he runs for reelection in conservative Kentucky won’t hurt either.

To McConnell, Republicans are simply following the law established by the Budget Control Act — which created the sequester’s automatic spending cuts — to trim billions in spending each year while Democrats are the party of “tax and spend,” turning their backs on the last big bipartisan budget deal. A vote for the transportation bill would have violated Congress’s promise to stick to the agreed-upon spending levels, Republicans say.

“The story line would have been that Congress on a bipartisan basis walked away from the Budget Control Act,” McConnell said.

But GOP unanimity while staring down a government shutdown won’t be easy.

A small group of Senate Republicans are participating in open-ended budget talks with the White House. A number of Republicans in both chambers, including House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), want to replace the sequester before further cuts hit in January. And voting records show that Senate Republicans are more fractured than Democrats.

After GOP splits on guns, immigration, the farm bill, an Internet sales tax bill and some of President Barack Obama’s most controversial nominees, Democrats doubt Republicans can coalesce around anything anymore. Top McConnell aides argue those are issues for which the “breakdowns are not traditional” — or strictly along party lines. In comparison, fiscal issues offer a chance to draw a “very clear line” between the two parties, an aide said.

The fall spending showdown is of utmost importance to Republican leaders because it involves must-pass legislation, pegged to the hard deadline of Sept. 30. Immigration, farm and the sales tax bills are all stalled in the House with no clear path forward — but they lack the urgency of government funding or raising the debt ceiling, two issues Republicans may try to pair together in order to increase their leverage for more spending cuts.

“The spending one is not in doubt: There will be a law,” said a top McConnell aide.

The strategy of presenting a united front on spending smells of desperation given months of division, Democratic Senate aides say. They believe six to 10 Republicans can be wooed to support levels higher than the $967 billion in discretionary spending that GOP leadership prefers, especially if a spending bill is tailored to some of their interests and replaces some or all of the sequester. Arizona Sen. John McCain is worried about the sequester hurting fire preparedness. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham frets about national security. Democrats see the unease as an opportunity.

“There are a number of senators who have broken away here who are trying to do the right thing,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said last week.